Intelligent node positioning in a site analysis report

ABSTRACT

In the context of a site analysis report showing paths between nodes, nodes are automatically positioned within the report in an intelligent manner, according to specified criteria so as to provide useful information about the represented pages. For example, the Y-axis can indicate relative depth of a page in the site, while the X-axis represents conversion rate. Alternatively, node position can represent any other quantitatively representable data, either specified as a default or selected by the user. In one embodiment, the automatic positioning can be overridden by a user, if desired.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related to display of website visitationstatistics, and more particularly to the intelligent positioning ofnodes in a site analysis report for displaying visitation patterns.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BACKGROUND ART

It is useful for website operators to be able to discern patterns ofvisitation to their websites. Website operators, advertisers, and otherparties are interested in finding out which web pages within theirwebsites tend to be visited more or less frequently than others. Suchinformation has many uses, including for example: identifying problemareas in a website, identifying pages that tend to lose visitors toother websites, analyzing traffic flow for advertising and server loadpurposes, and the like.

Of particular use are statistics as to the visitation path flow thatvisitors tend to follow. Such statistics include for example,information as to where the visitors tend to enter the site, what pagesdo they tend to visit first, what pages tend to be visited just after orbefore other pages, and the like.

Website operators often ask the following questions about visitationpatterns:

-   -   How do site visitation patterns look like from a big picture        perspective, including high-level relationships among nodes?    -   What are the patterns of behavior for various segments of        visitors?    -   Where are the significant pathing trends, including amount and        direction of traffic flow?    -   What are the exit points in context with site flow?

Existing web analytics software generally fails to effectively answerthese questions. Such software provides some statistics as to sitevisitation path flow, and provide reports showing visitation paths fromnode to node. However, such reports are often complex and extremelydetailed, making it difficult for users to discern patterns among thedisplayed visitation paths. In some cases, it may be difficult todetermine which paths point in which direction.

Another piece of information that is useful to website operators is aconversion rate for each page in a website. This conversion rateindicates a ratio between page visits and sales for each page in awebsite.

What is needed is a site analysis report that provides a visual,easy-to-understand representation of path flows from node to node.

What is further needed is a site analysis report that allows a user todynamically specify how many node-to-node connections should be shown atany given time.

What is further needed is a site analysis report that provides a visualindication of conversion rate.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In the context of a site analysis report showing paths between nodes,nodes are automatically positioned within the report in an intelligentmanner, according to specified criteria so as to provide usefulinformation about the represented pages. For example, the Y-axis canindicate relative depth of a page in the site, while the X-axisrepresents conversion rate. Alternatively, node position can representany other quantitatively representable data, either specified as adefault or selected by the user. In one embodiment, the automaticpositioning can be overridden by a user, if desired.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for presenting a web analyticsreport according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the memory of thesystem of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is functional block diagram of the interaction of the system ofthe present invention with a user, a web analytics tool and a database.

FIG. 4A is an example of the use of color to indicate direction oftraffic in a site analysis report according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4B is a second example of the use of color to indicate direction oftraffic in a site analysis report according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4C is a second example of the use of color to indicate direction oftraffic in a two-dimensional site analysis report according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 5A is an example of a site analysis report including a relevanceslider in a first position according to one embodiment.

FIG. 5B is an example of a site analysis report including a relevanceslider in a second position according to one embodiment.

FIG. 5C is an example of a site analysis report including a relevanceslider in a third position according to one embodiment.

FIG. 5D is an example of a site analysis report including a relevanceslider in a third position according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6A is an example depicting intelligent node positioning in a siteanalysis report according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6B is a second example depicting intelligent node positioning in asite analysis report according to one embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an example depicting intelligent node positioning, relevanceslider, and use of color in a site analysis report according to oneembodiment.

The Figures depict a preferred embodiment of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed withoutdeparting from the principles of the invention described herein.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a system and method for generating an improvedsite analysis report that might be displayed, for example, as part of auser interface for a web analytics tool. In the following description,for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. It will beapparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the invention can bepracticed without these specific details. In other instances, structuresand devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuringthe invention.

The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type ofdisk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, andmagnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupledto a computer system bus.

The algorithms, displays, reports, and layouts presented herein are notinherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus.Various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordancewith the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct morespecialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The requiredstructure for a variety of these systems will appear from thedescription below. In addition, the present invention is not describedwith reference to any particular programming language. It will beappreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used toimplement the teachings of the invention as described herein.

Furthermore, the present invention is described below primarily in thecontext of web analytics data; however that is only by way of example,for convenience and ease of understanding of the concepts of the presentinvention. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the presentinvention is not limited to web analytics data but may also be used forany other type of data including but not limited to marketing data,sales data, application usage data, hardware usage data, financial data,health data, census data, etc.

Architecture

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the system 100. While thepresent invention will now be described in the context of a von Neumannarchitecture, it should be understood that one embodiment of the presentinvention divides functionality in a client/server architecture.Referring to FIG. 1, the system 100 is shown as including a control unit150, a display 121, a keyboard 122, a cursor controller 123, a networkcontroller 124, and an input/output device 125. The control unit 150 isshown including a processor 102, main memory 104, and a data storagedevice 106, all of which are communicatively coupled to system bus 108.

Processor 102 processes data signals and may comprise various computingarchitectures including a complex instruction set computer (CISC)architecture, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, oran architecture implementing a combination of instruction sets. Althoughonly a single processor is shown in FIG. 1, multiple processors may beincluded.

Main memory 104 may store instructions and/or data that may be executedby processor 102. The instructions and/or data may comprise code forperforming any and/or all of the techniques described herein. Mainmemory 104 may be a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device, a staticrandom access memory (SRAM) device, or some other memory device known inthe art. The memory 104 is described in more detail below with referenceto FIG. 2. In particular, the portions of the memory 104 for providingdynamic path flow display are shown in detail.

Data storage device 106 stores data and instructions for processor 102and may comprise one or more devices including a hard disk drive, afloppy disk drive, a CD-ROM device, a DVD-ROM device, a DVD-RAM device,a DVD-RW device, a flash memory device, or some other mass storagedevice known in the art. More specifically for Web analytics a diskarray or multiple servers and associated database may be used as thedata storage device 106.

System bus 108 represents a shared bus for communicating information anddata throughout control unit 150. System bus 108 may represent one ormore buses including an industry standard architecture (ISA) bus, aperipheral component interconnect (PCI) bus, a universal serial bus(USB), or some other bus known in the art to provide similarfunctionality.

Additional components coupled to control unit 150 through system bus 108include display device 121, keyboard 122, cursor control device 123,network controller 124 and I/O device 125. Display device 121 representsany device equipped to display electronic images and data as describedherein. Display device 121 may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquidcrystal display (LCD), or any other similarly equipped display device,screen, or monitor. Keyboard 122 represents an alphanumeric input devicecoupled to control unit 150 to communicate information and commandselections to processor 102. Cursor control 123 represents a user inputdevice equipped to communicate positional data as well as commandselections to processor 102. Cursor control 123 may include a mouse, atrackball, a stylus, a pen, a touch screen, cursor direction keys, orother mechanisms to cause movement of a cursor. Network controller 124links control unit 150 to a network that may include multiple processingsystems. The network of processing systems may comprise a local areanetwork (LAN), a wide area network (WAN) (e.g., the Internet), and/orany other interconnected data path across which multiple devices maycommunicate.

One or more I/O devices 125 are coupled to the system bus 108. Forexample, the I/O device 125 may be an audio device 125 equipped toreceive audio input and transmit audio output. Audio input may bereceived through various devices including a microphone within audiodevice 125 and network controller 124. Similarly, audio output mayoriginate from various devices including processor 102 and networkcontroller 124. In one embodiment, audio device 125 is a general purposeaudio add-in/expansion card designed for use within a general purposecomputer system. Optionally, audio device 125 may contain one or moreanalog-to-digital or digital-to-analog converters, and/or one or moredigital signal processors to facilitate audio processing.

It should be apparent to one skilled in the art that control unit 150may include more or less components than those shown in FIG. 1 withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Forexample, control unit 150 may include additional memory, such as, forexample, a first or second level cache, or one or more applicationspecific integrated circuits (ASICs). Similarly, additional componentsmay be coupled to control unit 150 including, for example, imagescanning devices, digital still or video cameras, or other devices thatmay or may not be equipped to capture and/or download electronic data tocontrol unit 150.

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of memory 104 of the present inventionincluding operating system 202, a web browser 204, applications 206, apath flow module 208, a web analytics tool 210, and a path analysisreport module 214.

The operating system 202 is preferably one of a conventional type suchas WINDOWS®, SOLARIS® or LINUX® based operating systems.

The web browser 204 is of a conventional type that provides access tothe Internet and processes HTML, XML or other mark up language togenerated images on the display device 121. For example, the web browser204 could be Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The memory unit 104 also includes one or more application programs 206including, without limitation, word processing applications, electronicmail applications, spreadsheet applications, and web browserapplications.

The memory 104 also includes a web analytics tool 210 such as SiteCatalyst version 11 from Omniture of Orem, Utah.

The path flow module 208 is a program or routines for collecting andprocessing information as to visitation path flows for websites and webpages. In particular, the path flow module 208 determines whichvisitation paths tend to be followed and generates statistics describingsuch visitation paths. Demographic and geographic information regardingwebsite visitors are monitored so that trends can be identified. Thecollected information is processed to generate statistics that can bedisplayed in a report, either in tabular form or in graphical form. Inparticular, in one embodiment of the present invention the path flowstatistics are shown in a dynamic report via path analysis report module214.

The path analysis report module 214 is a program or routines forgeneration of reports summarizing path flow data. The path analysisreport module 214 is coupled to the web analytics tool 210 and the pathflow module 208. The path analysis report module 214 receives data fromeach of these modules 208 and 210, and creates one or more reports fordisplay of the combined information to the user. Examples of reportsgenerated by the path analysis report module 214 are described in moredetail below.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a block diagram showing the interaction of thecomponents of the present invention in a web analytics system 300 willbe described. The path analysis report module 214 presents path flowreports 361 generated using data from the web analytics tool 210. Thepath analysis report module 214 also presents an interface that allows auser 302 to provide user input 362 that is sent to the path flow module201. In this manner, user 302 can interact with path flow reports 361.The path analysis report module 214 is coupled for communication withthe path flow module 201 and the web analytics tool 210.

The web analytics tool 210 is coupled to a data set or database in datastorage 107. The data set can then be further manipulated by the webanalytics tool 210 for the creation of reports, display to the user,tracking, targeting, and notification of users based on the data. Thoseskilled in the art will recognize that the functionality provided by thepath analysis report module 214 may be integrated into the path flowmodule 201 and in such an embodiment the path flow module 201 wouldinteract directly with the client 304.

Improvements to Site Analysis Reports

According to the present invention, several improvements are made tosite analysis reports in order to improve clarity and readability. Aswill be recognized by one skilled in the art, these improvements can beimplemented separately or in any combination. In one embodiment, pathanalysis report module 214 generates reports according to one or more ofthese techniques.

Use of Color to Indicate Direction of Traffic

Color is used to indicate a direction of traffic that follows aparticular node-to-node path. Different colors are assigned to differentnodes in a site analysis report. Paths are color-coded according totheir destination nodes, so as to provide a distinctive visualidentification of a traffic flow direction.

For example, a traffic path connecting a green node and a red node canbe colored green or red depending on the direction of traffic. If thegreen node tends to be visited just before the red node (indicating apath from the green node to the red node), the green node is considereda source node and the red node is considered a destination node. Thus,the path connecting the nodes is colored red, which corresponds to thedestination node. In one embodiment, the intensity of the color can bevaried to indicate the volume of traffic along the path. In anotherembodiment, volume of traffic is indicated by thickness of the line orby other visual means.

Referring now to FIG. 4A, there is shown an example of a report 400using colors to indicate directions of traffic according to oneembodiment. Cylinders represent nodes 401, or web pages. In oneembodiment, larger cylinders are more frequently visited than smallercylinders; however, cylinder size can be indicative of any metric. Lines402 between nodes 401 represent traffic moving from one node 401 toanother (i.e., visiting one node 401 immediately after visiting anothernode 401). The color of each line 402 matches the color of thedestination node 401, thus indicating a predominant direction of trafficfor each node-to-node path. Thicker lines 402 indicate higher volumes oftraffic from one node 401 to another. In this particular example, arrows403, 404 are also used to further reinforce the direction of traffic.

Referring now to FIG. 4B, there is shown another view of the same report400, again using colors to indicate directions of traffic. This exampleshows green lines connecting home page 401A with other pages (nodes) 401in the website, to indicate traffic flow from home page 401A to otherpages 401. Red lines indicate traffic flow from pages 401 back to homepage 401A.

In one embodiment, if traffic between two nodes 401 is bidirectional,two lines 402 are shown between the nodes 401, one in each color. Inanother embodiment, bidirectional traffic is indicated with a singleline 402 that includes the colors of both nodes 401.

In one embodiment, animation is used to further indicate trafficdirection, particularly in a context where a dynamic display isfeasible, such as on a display screen. For example, moving arrows 404can be included to show the direction of traffic; the arrows 404 can bepresented in a color that matches that of the destination node 401, orthey can change color from the source node 401 color to the destinationnode 401 color as they travel along the length of the path.

In another embodiment, the intensity of the line 402 color isnon-uniform, becoming more intense closer to the destination node 401.

The examples are shown in three-dimensional versions with curved linesto heighten the illusion of depth. However, one skilled in the art willrecognized that such reports can be shown in two-dimensional form, forexample with straight lines instead of curved lines. An example of areport 400 presented in such a two-dimensional form is shown in FIG. 4C.

Relevance Slider

In some cases, reports may become cluttered because of the number ofconnections being shown. In one embodiment, the invention provides amechanism by which a user can indicate that he or she is interested inseeing only a subset of connections. For example, a sliding control, orslider, can be included. The slider provides a continuous control forspecifying any desired threshold degree of relevance. Depending on wherethe user places the control, only those connections that meet or exceedthe specified threshold relevance are shown. Any measure of relevancecan be used, such as for example the amount of traffic along aparticular node-to-node connection, or the conversion rate for adestination node associated with a path, or any combination thereof. Inone embodiment, relevance represents a combination of various metrics,such as a weighted combination of traffic and conversion metrics.

For example, FIG. 5A is an example of report 400 similar to that shownin FIG. 4A. Relevance slider 501 is included; here, the user can movedthe relevance slider 501 to the topmost position. Thus, all node-to-nodeconnections are shown in report 400. As can be seen from the example,report 400 tends to be quite cluttered when slider 501 is in thisposition.

FIG. 5B shows the same report 400 with relevance slider 501 in anotherposition, about two-thirds of the way to the top. Here, theless-traveled node-to-node connections are not shown, so that the moreheavily traveled connections can be more easily seen.

FIG. 5C shows the same report 400 but with relevance slider 501 moved toa lower level, about one-third from the bottom. Here, even fewernode-to-node connections are shown, so that the more heavily traveledconnections can be more easily seen.

FIG. 5D shows the same report 400 with relevance slider 501 moved to aneven lower level, almost at the bottom. Here, the only three lines 402are shown, representing the most heavily traveled connections. The fadeeffect shows the most heavily traveled connection with the darkest line.

In one embodiment, as the user moves relevance slider 501 up or down,lines 402 fade in and out, so as to reinforce the connection betweenslider 501 and its effect on report 400. Lines 402 for less-traveledconnections fade more quickly than lines 402 for more heavily traveledconnections. In one embodiment, the fade effect is implemented in agradual manner, so that those lines 402 become fainter as slider 501 ismoved down, as shown in FIGS. 5A-5D. Those lines 402 that are initiallydarkest (corresponding to the highest amounts of traffic) remain visiblewhile other lines 402 fade away. The instantaneous fade-in and fade-outeffect helps the user select a relevance level that is best suited forhis or her immediate needs.

Intelligent Node Positioning

Site analysis reports are intended primarily to show information aboutnode-to-node connections. As such, the actual position of each nodewithin a report is of secondary importance, and in some prior artsystems is arbitrary.

However, physical positioning of a node within a report can carry usefulinformation. In one embodiment, the system of the present inventionautomatially positions nodes with the report according to atwo-dimensional axis. Any desired meaning can be assigned to each axis.In one embodiment, the following default meanings are assigned:

-   -   The Y-axis indicates relative depth of a page in the site (how        many previous pages users see, on average, before they see this        page); and    -   The X-axis represents conversion rate of a page, or ability of        the page to turn a visit into a completed sale; this can be        expressed as the number of orders per visit to the page

In one embodiment, the automatic node positioning (as well as spacingand/or scale) is adjusted to allow for legibility and for proper spacingamong nodes. Automatic node positioning can be turned off or overiddento allow a user to drag nodes around according to his or her wishes.

In one embodiment, node positioning is scaled so that the highestaverage page depth is assigned the highest number in the graph, andlower depths are displayed accordingly.

In one embodiment, other meanings can be assigned to the X and/or Yaxes; for example, the person viewing the report may be able to indicatewhat each axis represents via a preferences screen.

An advantage of automatic intelligent node positioning is that itprovides a visual indication of the site's architecture as well as ofthe ability of individual pages to convert visits into sales. Forexample, if a diagonal line is drawn from top left to bottom right,items below the line could be considered poor converters, while itemsabove the line could be considered good converters.

FIG. 6A depicts an example of a report 400 where nodes 401 have beenautomatically positioned according to average page depth (Y-axis) andorders per visit (X-axis). For illustrative purposes, no nodeconnections are shown (relevance slider 501 has been moved to its lowestposition), and the axes 600 are labeled.

Home page 401A is in the upper left corner, indicating that it is of alow page depth (usually visited fairly early in the course of a sitevisit), and of a low Orders per page view (fewer people than averagepurchase after seeing that page). Category Accessories page 401B and theSearch Results page 401C have roughly equal page depth to one another,and are deeper in the site than home page 401A. Search Results page 401Chas a higher than average conversion rate than does Category Accessoriespage 401B. Add product to cart page 401D is deeper in the site thanother pages, and also has a higher conversion rate.

Referring now to FIG. 6B, there is shown report 400 with another pageadded: Buy Process—Receipt page 401E. Page 401E is deeper in the sitethan any other page depicted in report 400, and also has a higherconversion rate.

Combination

Referring now to FIG. 7, there is shown report 400 illustratingrelevance slider 501, intelligent node position, and use of coloraccording to one embodiment combining these three concepts. Sincerelevance slider 501 has been moved up from its lowest position, lines402 are now visible showing connections among nodes.

In the above description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specificdetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofthe invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the artthat the invention can be practiced without these specific details. Inother instances, structures and devices are shown in block diagram formin order to avoid obscuring the invention.

Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification are not necessarily all referring tothe same embodiment.

Some portions of the detailed description are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the discussion, it isappreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizing termssuch as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or“displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of acomputer system, or similar electronic computing device, thatmanipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic)quantities within the computer system's registers and memories intoother data similarly represented as physical quantities within thecomputer system's memories or registers or other such informationstorage, transmission or display devices.

The present invention also relates to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type ofdisk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, andmagnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupledto a computer system bus.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer, network of computers, or other apparatus.Various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordancewith the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct amore specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. Therequired structure for a variety of these systems appears from thedescription. In addition, the present invention is not described withreference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciatedthat a variety of programming languages may be used to implement theteachings of the invention as described herein.

As will be understood by those familiar with the art, the invention maybe embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit oressential characteristics thereof. For example, the particulararchitectures depicted above are merely exemplary of one implementationof the present invention. The functional elements and method stepsdescribed above are provided as illustrative examples of one techniquefor implementing the invention; one skilled in the art will recognizethat many other implementations are possible without departing from thepresent invention as recited in the claims. Likewise, the particularcapitalization or naming of the modules, protocols, features,attributes, or any other aspect is not mandatory or significant, and themechanisms that implement the invention or its features may havedifferent names or formats. In addition, the present invention may beimplemented as a method, process, user interface, computer programproduct, system, apparatus, or any combination thereof. Accordingly, thedisclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative, butnot limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is set forth in thefollowing claims.

1. A method of generating a site analysis report comprising a pluralityof nodes, comprising: performing, by a computer, the following: for eachnode, automatically establishing a position along a first axisindicative of page depth of the node within a site, wherein the positioncorresponds to a first quantitative value indicative of an averagenumber of pages of the site that users visit prior to visiting a pagecorresponding to the node; for each node, automatically establishing aposition along a second axis indicative of user behavior, wherein theposition corresponds to a second quantitative value indicative of userbehavior associated with the node; and outputting a site analysis reportcomprising a graph of at least two dimensions, wherein the graphcomprises a first dimension defined by the first axis indicative of pagedepth and a second dimension defined by the second axis indicative ofuser behavior, wherein each node of at least a subset of the nodes isshown within the graph at a location defined by the establishedpositions along the first and second axes to depict a directrelationship between the page depth and the user behavior associatedwith each node.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the secondquantitative value represents conversion rate.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the site analysis report further comprises at least oneconnection between two nodes.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the siteanalysis report further comprises display of a plurality of connectionsbetween the nodes, wherein the connections between the nodes representwebsite visitation patterns.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising, prior to outputting the site analysis report, automaticallyadjusting at least one of the established positions.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: receiving user input to adjust at least oneof the established positions; and adjusting at least one of theestablished positions responsive to the received user input.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, wherein outputting the site analysis report comprisesdisplaying the site analysis report on a display screen.
 8. The methodof claim 1, wherein outputting the site analysis report comprisesprinting the site analysis report.
 9. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium storing computer-executable program instructions forgenerating a site analysis report comprising a plurality of nodes,wherein the instructions when executed by a computer cause: for eachnode, automatically establishing a position along a first axisindicative of page depth of the node within a site, wherein the positioncorresponds to a first quantitative value indicative of an averagenumber of pages of the site that users visit prior to visiting a pagecorresponding to the node; for each node, automatically establishing aposition along a second axis indicative of user behavior, wherein theposition corresponds to a second quantitative value indicative of userbehavior associated with the node; and outputting a site analysis reportcomprising a graph of at least two dimensions, wherein the graphcomprises a first dimension defined by the first axis indicative of pagedepth and a second dimension defined by the second axis indicative ofuser behavior, wherein each node of at least a subset of the nodes isshown within the graph at a location defined by the establishedpositions along the first and second axes to depict a directrelationship between the page depth and the user behavior associatedwith each node.
 10. The non-transitory computer readable storage mediumof claim 9, wherein the second quantitative value represents conversionrate.
 11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim9, wherein the site analysis report further comprises at least oneconnection between two nodes.
 12. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 9, wherein the site analysis report furthercomprises display of a plurality of connections between the nodes,wherein the connections between the nodes represent website visitationpatterns.
 13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 9, further comprising, prior to outputting the site analysisreport, automatically adjusting at least one of the establishedpositions.
 14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 9, further comprising computer program code for: receiving userinput to adjust at least one of the established positions; and adjustingat least one of the established positions responsive to the receiveduser input.
 15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 9, wherein the computer program code for outputting the siteanalysis report comprises computer program code for displaying the siteanalysis report on a display screen.
 16. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the computer program codefor outputting the site analysis report comprises computer program codefor printing the site analysis report.
 17. A system for generating asite analysis report comprising a plurality of nodes, comprising: a pathanalysis report module, for: for each node, automatically establishing aposition along a first axis indicative of page depth of the node withina site, wherein the position corresponds to a first quantitative valueindicative of an average number of pages of the site that users visitprior to visiting a page corresponding to the node; for each node,automatically establishing a position along a second axis indicative ofuser behavior, wherein the position corresponds to a second quantitativevalue indicative of user behavior associated with the node; and anoutput device, coupled to the path analysis report module, foroutputting a site analysis report comprising a graph of at least twodimensions, wherein the graph comprises a first dimension defined by thefirst axis indicative of page depth and a second dimension defined bythe second axis indicative of user behavior, wherein each node of atleast a subset of the nodes is shown at a location within the graphdefined by the established positions along the first and second axes todepict a direct relationship between the page depth and the userbehavior associated with each node.
 18. The system of claim 17, whereinthe second quantitative value represents conversion rate.
 19. The systemof claim 17, wherein the site analysis report further comprises displayof a plurality of connections between the nodes, wherein the connectionsbetween the nodes represent website visitation patterns.
 20. The systemof claim 17, wherein, prior to the output device outputting the siteanalysis report, the path analysis report module automatically adjustsat least one of the established positions.
 21. The system of claim 17,further comprising: an input device, for receiving user input to adjustat least one of the established positions; wherein the path analysisreport module adjusts at least one of the established positionsresponsive to the received user input.
 22. The system of claim 17,wherein the output device comprises at least one selected from the groupconsisting of: a display screen; and a printer.